Cleaning the Office

     Seven years from the last visit, the time charts have to be stored, except when it is a child, in which case it is seven years after the client turns eighteen. So, chart thinning is a yearly ritual. New psychiatry  graduates have a different plan. Many are paperless. There are no charts; patient information is digital. This means no file cabinet. All papers are scanned into an electric file; then the paper is shredded. Back-ups are digital as well. Space requirements go way down. Security issues change. Whereas I worry about a fire, my newly minted colleagues need to be concerned about an electromagnetic pulse which can wipe out electronic data. I peruse old files, looking through pictures, hand-drawn,  as well as photographs. I touch them. I turn them over. I feel nostalgia, remembering when a patient handed me something they wanted me to keep. I am no technophobe, but I  appreciate touching documents; turning pages stimulates reverie. Maybe sitting at my computer, reviewing old files would do the same thing, but I don’t think so. There is something nice, almost sweet, about holding a paper, seeing the writing, in assorted colors, pop out, as I sort through old charts. I embrace the digital age, but not for everything.